Floating Lawn Chairs

The sun was a hot hammer. It beat down on the sand until the beach felt like a giant toaster. I sat in my folding chair. It was a cheap chair. One of the ones with a hole for a cup. I had a can of root beer. It was cold. The condensation made my palm wet. I liked the feeling. It was the only cold thing for miles. The lake was flat. It looked like a big piece of blue plastic. People were everywhere. It was the big summer bash in Gimli. There were kids with shovels. There were old people with hats. Everyone was sweating. Everyone was loud.

"Pass the chips," Kev said. He was lying on a towel. He looked like a piece of bacon. He was getting too red. He didn't believe in sunscreen. He said it was for people who didn't respect the sun. I thought he was just lazy. I reached for the bag. My fingers were sticky. I fumbled the can. It was half-full. It slipped through my grip. I expected a splash. I expected the sand to turn brown and wet. I expected to be annoyed. But the can didn't hit the ground.

It just stayed there. It hovered near my knee. A few drops of root beer floated out. They looked like little brown pearls. They didn't fall. They drifted up. I watched one. It hit my nose. It felt cold. Then it kept going. It went past my eyes. It went toward the sun. I looked at the can. It was slowly rising. It was moving like a slow-motion balloon.

"Baz," Kev said. His voice was weird. It was thin.

"I see it," I said.

"No," Kev said. "Look at your feet."

I looked down. My flip-flops were still on the sand. But my heels were lifting. I wasn't doing it. I felt light. I felt like I was made of air. I felt like a dandelion seed. I gripped the arms of my chair. The chair felt light too. It started to tip. I kicked my legs. There was no resistance. I wasn't falling. I was drifting.

"What is this?" I asked. My voice sounded small.

"The Glitch," Kev said. He was clawing at the sand. He was trying to hold onto the beach. It wasn't working. He was sliding upward. His towel went with him. It looked like a magic carpet. He looked ridiculous. He was red and angry and floating.

All around us, the screaming started. It wasn't scary screaming at first. It was the sound people make on roller coasters. It was high-pitched. It was confused. A beach ball drifted past. It was followed by a cooler. The cooler was leaking ice. The ice looked like diamonds in the air. A woman nearby was trying to catch her hat. She missed. Then she kept going too. Her feet left the ground. She looked like she was trying to walk on stairs that weren't there.

"I don't like this," I said. I felt a knot in my stomach. It was a heavy knot. It was the only heavy thing left. I looked at the lake. The water wasn't splashing anymore. It was bulging. Small hills of water were rising up. They stayed together like jelly.

"Grab something!" Kev yelled. He was three feet off the ground now. He was kicking his legs like a frantic turtle.

I looked around. There was a picnic table nearby. It was made of heavy wood and metal. I lunged for it. My body moved too fast. I overshot. I felt like I was on the moon. I grabbed the edge of the metal frame. The moment my fingers touched the iron, I felt weight. It wasn't much. It was like I was back to being a normal human. But only in my hand. The rest of me wanted to float away. My legs trailed behind me. I looked like a flag in a light breeze.

"The metal!" I shouted. "Kev! The table!"

Kev was too far. He was spinning. He looked like a rotisserie chicken. He reached into his bag. He pulled out a neon pink jump rope. He had bought it earlier for a contest. He threw one end at the table. He missed. He threw it again. He was sweating. The sweat was flying off his face in little globes. They looked like tiny planets. Finally, the handle of the rope caught on a bolt. He pulled himself down. He tied the rope around his waist. He tied the other end to the table leg.

"I'm not going to space today, boys!" Kev yelled. He sounded proud. He also looked like he might throw up.

I gripped the table. My knuckles were white. I could feel the heat of the metal. It was grounding me. I looked down the beach. It was a mess. Hundreds of people were floating. They were holding onto umbrellas. They were holding onto each other. Some were laughing. Some were crying. It was the weirdest party I had ever seen.

Then I heard a whistle. It was a loud, sharp whistle. I looked toward the shoreline. The Mayor was there. He was a big man with a very expensive suit. He was currently upside down. He was holding onto a wooden post. He looked desperate.

"Barnaby!" the Mayor screamed. "Barnaby, come back!"

I saw him. Barnaby. The Mayor's golden retriever. He was about twenty feet up. He wasn't panicking. He was paddling. His paws were moving in a perfect doggy-paddle. He looked like he was swimming through the air. He was heading for the horizon. He was chasing a floating frisbee. He looked like he was having the time of his life.

"He's going to drift over the lake!" the Mayor cried. "Someone help him!"

I looked at Kev. Kev looked at me.

"We can't just let the dog go to space," Kev said.

"How?" I asked. "We're tethered to a table."

Kev looked at the pile of gear near the table. There were two leaf blowers. They belonged to the grounds crew. They had left them there when the gravity broke. They were orange and heavy. They were made of plastic and metal.

"We use those," Kev said. He pointed. "Low-budget astronauts, Baz. Let's go."

The Leaf Blower Astronauts

I grabbed the first leaf blower. It was heavy. Or it should have been. In the Glitch, it felt like it was made of foam. I tucked it under my arm. It had a metal handle. As soon as I touched it, I felt a bit of gravity return. It wasn't much. It was like wearing a heavy backpack. It kept me from drifting too fast. I looked at Kev. He had the second one. He was struggling with his jump rope. He untied himself from the table. He tied the rope to his belt instead. He looped the other end around the leaf blower's handle.

"Ready?" Kev asked. He looked pale. The red on his skin was deepening. He looked like a very stressed tomato.

"No," I said.

"Me neither," Kev said. "Do it anyway."

I pulled the starter cord. It didn't start. I pulled it again. The engine sputtered. A cloud of blue smoke puffed out. The smoke didn't rise. It formed a perfect sphere around the engine. It looked like a grey bubble. I coughed. The smoke stayed in my lungs. I pulled one more time. The engine roared. The vibration went through my arms. It felt good. It felt real.

I pointed the nozzle toward the ground. I squeezed the trigger. The air blasted out. The force pushed me up. It was a jerky, violent movement. I felt like I was being kicked by a mule. I flew ten feet into the air. I let go of the trigger. I stopped. I was hovering.

"It works!" I yelled.

Kev started his. He wasn't as careful. He squeezed the trigger all the way. He shot forward like a rocket. He screamed. He did a loop-de-loop. He was flailing his legs. He looked like a bug hitting a windshield. He finally figured out how to aim. He pointed the nozzle behind him. He stabilized. He drifted next to me. We were twenty feet above the sand.

"This is awesome," Kev said. He was grinning now. His fear had turned into something else. Something dumber.

"Focus," I said. "The dog."

Barnaby was further out now. He was near the edge of the water. He was still paddling. He looked very focused. He was closing in on the frisbee. He didn't realize he was fifty feet above Lake Winnipeg. The lake looked different from up here. The water was lifting in large, wobbling domes. It looked like the surface of a giant grape.

We tilted our leaf blowers. We aimed the nozzles at the beach. We started to move. It was slow. The air was thick and strange. Every time I squeezed the trigger, the leaf blower kicked. It was hard to keep a straight line. I felt like I was trying to steer a shopping cart with a broken wheel.

"Hey!" a voice yelled.

I looked to my left. A group of teenagers was floating nearby. They were wearing neon sunglasses. They had tied themselves together with a long strand of bungee cords. They were holding bags of chips and bottles of Gatorade. They looked like they were having a party in the sky.

"Nice rigs!" one of them shouted. He had a mullet. He was holding a bag of Cheetos. "Where can we get some?"

"They're leaf blowers, Chad!" Kev yelled back.

"Give us a boost!" the mullet kid said. He started to paddle toward us. He was using a plastic tray like an oar.

"Get lost!" I said. "We're on a mission."

"Mission?" the kid laughed. "You're in the sky, bro. There's no missions here. Only vibes."

He reached out. He tried to grab Kev's snack bag. Kev had a bag of beef jerky tucked into his pocket. The kid's fingers brushed against Kev's arm. Kev reacted. He swung his free hand. It was a slow-motion slap. It took three seconds for his palm to reach the kid's face. The kid didn't move. He just watched it come.

Thwack.

The sound was dull. The impact sent them both drifting in opposite directions. Kev spun backward. The kid tumbled over his friends. They all started tangled in their bungee cords. It looked like a giant knot of neon fabric and Cheeto dust.

"Sky-bros," Kev muttered. He regained his balance. "The worst."

We kept moving. The wind was picking up. It wasn't a normal wind. It was a series of hot, dry gusts that smelled like lake weeds and sunblock. I could see the Viking statue now. It was the big one from the center of town. It had broken off its pedestal. It was drifting toward the lake. It was upright. It looked like it was sailing through the air. It was a giant stone man with a helmet. It looked more dignified than any of us.

"Watch out!" I yelled.

We steered around the Viking's head. I could see the cracks in the stone. I could see where a bird had built a nest in its ear. The statue didn't care about gravity. It just kept moving toward the water. It was peaceful.

"Where's the dog?" Kev asked.

I looked up. Barnaby was a small golden speck against the blue. He was high. Much higher than us. He had reached the frisbee. He had it in his mouth. Now he was looking around. He looked confused. He realized there was no ground. He started to paddle faster. He was moving toward a cloud.

"We need more power," I said.

I looked at the leaf blower. The fuel gauge was low. The engine was hot. I could feel the heat through my shirt. It was a stinging heat.

"If we go higher, we might not come down," Kev said.

"We have to," I said. "Look at the Mayor."

I looked back at the beach. The Mayor was a tiny dot. He was still waving his arms. He looked like a bug on a pin. He was counting on us.

"Fine," Kev said. "But if I end up on the moon, I'm stealing your Xbox."

"Deal," I said.

We pointed the blowers straight down. We squeezed. The world dropped away. The beach became a toy set. The people became ants. The blue of the sky became deeper. It was quiet up here. The only sound was the roar of the engines and the wind in my ears. My eyes watered. I blinked. The tears didn't fall. They stayed on my eyelashes. They looked like tiny crystals. I felt like I was in a dream. A very loud, very hot dream.

The Viking and the Hook

The air got thinner. It felt like breathing through a straw. The sun was closer now. It felt like it was touching my back. I looked at Kev. He was having trouble. His leaf blower was smoking. The blue smoke was thicker. It was making a long trail behind him. He looked like a malfunctioning firework.

"Baz!" he yelled. "I think mine is dying!"

"Don't let go!" I shouted.

We were passing the Viking statue again. It had caught a different current. It was spinning slowly. The stone eyes seemed to watch us. It was creepy. It was a giant, silent judge in the sky. I looked away.

Suddenly, Kev's leaf blower made a loud bang. It shuddered. A flame licked out of the exhaust. Kev screamed. He let go of the handle.

It was a mistake.

Without the metal handle to ground him, the Glitch took full effect. Kev shot upward. He didn't have the weight of the machine anymore. He was like a balloon that had been released. He drifted away from me. He was flailing.

"Kev!" I yelled.

I tried to steer toward him. My blower was struggling too. It was coughing. I reached out. My fingers were inches from his shoe. I missed. He was moving too fast. He was heading for the clouds.

"I'm going!" Kev screamed. "I'm really going!"

"Grab the rope!" I said.

He tried. But the rope was tangled around the dead leaf blower. The machine was falling. Well, not falling. It was drifting downward. It was heavier than him. They were separating. Kev was alone. He looked small. He looked terrified.

I looked at my gear. I had a fishing rod strapped to my chair. I had grabbed the chair when we started. It was a light rod. A kid's rod. It had a heavy lead sinker on the end. I had been planning to catch some perch later.

I grabbed the rod. I braced myself against the air. It was a weird feeling. There was nothing to push against. I had to use the momentum of the leaf blower. I swung the rod. I cast the line.

The sinker flew through the air. It was a perfect cast. It zipped past Kev's head. The line was thin. It was almost invisible.

"Kev! Catch the line!" I yelled.

He didn't hear me. He was too busy screaming. The sinker started to wrap around his leg. The lead was heavy. It had enough metal to trigger the gravity rule. As soon as it touched his skin, Kev stopped rising. He jerked. He groaned.

"Ow!" he yelled.

"I got you!" I said.

I started to reel him in. It was hard work. Kev was a big guy. Even with the Glitch, he had mass. The rod bent into a deep U-shape. I was afraid it would snap. I used the leaf blower to pulse toward him. Little bursts of air.

Slowly, he came closer. I reached out and grabbed his hand. The moment we touched, our weights combined. We stabilized. We were both hanging onto the leaf blower. It was a tight fit.

"You harpooned me," Kev said. He was breathing hard. He looked at the line wrapped around his ankle. "You actually harpooned me."

"You're welcome," I said.

"My leg hurts," he complained.

"Better than space," I said.

We looked up. Barnaby was right there. He was only ten feet away. He had stopped paddling. He was just floating. The frisbee was still in his mouth. He looked bored. He was watching a seagull. The seagull was also floating. It was trying to flap its wings, but it wasn't going anywhere. It looked like it was swimming in invisible soup.

Barnaby saw us. He wagged his tail. The movement made him spin. He did a slow 360-degree turn. He looked like he wanted us to play.

"Hey, buddy," I said. My voice was gentle. "Come here."

I reached out. I didn't have any treats. I didn't have anything but a leaf blower and a fishing rod. I whistled. Barnaby tilted his head. He dropped the frisbee. The frisbee drifted away. It hit the Viking statue's nose.

Barnaby paddled toward us. He was surprisingly fast. He bumped into my chest. He was warm. He smelled like wet dog and lake water. I grabbed his collar. It was a nylon collar. No metal. He started to lift me up.

"He's too light!" I yelled. "Kev, grab his legs!"

Kev grabbed the dog's back legs. We were a mess. Two kids, a leaf blower, and a golden retriever, all tangled together in the sky. We were hovering near the clouds. The view was incredible. I could see the whole province. It was green and flat. I could see the curve of the earth.

"We did it," Kev said. "We got the dog."

"Now how do we get down?" I asked.

I looked at the lake. It was getting worse. The water spheres were growing. Some of them were the size of houses. They were lifting off the surface of the lake. They were giant bubbles of blue water. They were drifting toward us.

"Water," Kev said. "If we hit one of those, we'll drown in the sky."

He was right. The spheres were beautiful but deadly. They were moving randomly. One was coming straight for us. It was a perfect globe. I could see fish inside it. They were swimming in circles. They looked confused.

I squeezed the trigger on the leaf blower. Nothing. It was out of fuel. The engine died with a pathetic little cough.

"Great," I said. "Now what?"

We were drifting. We were at the mercy of the wind. We were heading toward a giant water bubble. It was only fifty feet away. I could see the light refracting through it. It looked like a giant lens.

"The swan!" Kev yelled.

He pointed. A giant inflatable swan was drifting nearby. It was one of those massive ones that can hold four people. It was bright white with an orange beak. It was empty. It had a heavy metal anchor chain hanging from it. The anchor was gone, but the chain was still there.

"If we get to that, we can use the chain for weight!" Kev said.

I looked at the swan. It was twenty feet away. It was moving faster than us.

"How?" I asked.

Kev looked at Barnaby.

"Dog power," he said.

He pointed at the swan. "Barnaby! Get the bird! Get the big bird!"

Barnaby saw the swan. His eyes lit up. He loved birds. He started to paddle. He was strong. He was pulling both of us. We were moving through the air like a weird sled. We were closing the gap.

"Almost there!" I yelled.

The water sphere was closing in from the other side. It was huge. It was cold. I could feel the moisture in the air. It felt like a fog.

I reached out. I grabbed the swan's wing. It was smooth plastic. I pulled us in. Kev grabbed the metal chain. The moment he touched it, we dropped.

We dropped fast. Gravity was trying to come back. It was fighting the Glitch. We fell twenty feet in a second. My stomach stayed in the clouds.

"Whoa!" Kev yelled.

We landed in the middle of the swan. It was soft. We were safe. For now. But we were still a hundred feet in the air. And we were falling. But not fast enough to be safe. We were drifting toward the lake.

Life is a Highway

The swan was a bad boat. It was even worse as a plane. We were spinning. Barnaby was sitting in the middle. He looked happy. He had found a stray tennis ball in the bottom of the swan. He was chewing on it. He didn't care that we were a hundred feet above the water.

"We're going to hit the lake," I said. "The spheres are everywhere."

I looked down. The lake was a minefield of water bubbles. If we hit one, we'd be trapped inside. We needed to get back to the sand.

"We need to steer," Kev said. He was holding the metal chain. It was keeping us from floating away, but it wasn't enough to make us sink all the way. We were stuck in a weird middle ground. We were buoyant.

I looked at the swan's neck. It was long and stiff. I grabbed it. I tried to use it like a rudder. I paddled the air. It didn't do much. The air was too thin.

"It's not working!" I yelled.

"Wait," Kev said. He was looking at his feet. "Look at the sand. When the people on the beach were screaming, they stayed up. But when that one guy was singing, he started to sink."

"What?" I asked. "That's crazy."

"Everything is crazy, Baz!" Kev screamed. "Logic is dead! Gravity is a suggestion! Just listen to me!"

He pointed to a group of people on the shore. They were holding hands. They were singing something. They were slowly descending. They looked like a choir of angels in swimsuits.

"What are they singing?" I asked.

Kev listened. He tilted his head.

"It sounds like... Rascal Flatts?" he said.

"No way," I said.

"Try it!" Kev yelled. "Sing something! Something catchy!"

I looked at Barnaby. He looked at me.

"Life is a highway!" Kev started to belt out. He was off-key. He was loud. He sounded like a dying walrus.

I joined in. "I want to ride it all night long!"

As soon as we started singing, the swan dipped. We dropped ten feet. It was like the sound waves were pushing us down. Or maybe the universe just hated our singing and wanted us to stop.

"It's working!" I yelled. "Keep going!"

"If you're going my way!" we screamed together.

We were dropping. We were moving toward the beach. The air was getting thicker. I could feel the heat again. The smell of the burgers from the snack shack was drifting up. It was a good smell. It smelled like home.

But the Glitch wasn't done.

Suddenly, the sky turned a weird shade of purple. The air started to vibrate. It felt like standing next to a giant speaker. My teeth ached.

"Something's happening!" Kev yelled.

He stopped singing. We stopped falling. We started to rise again.

"Don't stop!" I shouted. "Sing harder!"

We went back to the chorus. We sang until our throats hurt. We sang like our lives depended on it. Because they did. Barnaby even let out a howl. He was part of the band now.

We were twenty feet above the sand. I could see the Mayor. He was standing on a picnic table. He was reaching up.

"Almost there!" the Mayor yelled.

I looked at the lake. The water spheres were starting to collapse. They were falling back into the lake. They made giant splashes. The sound was like thunder.

Then, the vibration stopped. The purple light vanished. The air felt heavy. Really heavy.

"Uh oh," Kev said.

I felt it in my bones. The Glitch was over. Gravity was coming back. And it was coming back all at once.

One second we were floating. The next, we were a lead weight. The swan plummeted.

"Hold on!" I screamed.

We hit the sand. Hard.

The swan exploded. Not with fire, but with air. POP. The plastic shredded. We tumbled out. I hit the sand shoulder-first. It felt like hitting a brick wall. The wind was knocked out of me. I rolled over. My mouth was full of grit.

Kev landed on top of a cooler. The lid cracked. He was covered in melted ice and half-eaten sandwiches.

Barnaby landed on his feet. He was a dog. He was built for this. He shook himself. He looked around. He saw the Mayor. He ran over and dropped the tennis ball at the Mayor's feet.

"Barnaby!" the Mayor cried. He hugged the dog. He didn't care about his expensive suit. He was covered in dog hair and sand. He looked happy.

I lay on my back. I looked up. The sky was just a normal sky again. The clouds were still. The birds were flying normally. My soda can fell out of the sky and landed three feet away. It was empty.

"You okay?" I asked.

Kev groaned. He sat up. He had a piece of ham stuck to his forehead.

"I think I broke my butt," he said.

"At least you're not on the moon," I said.

"True," Kev said. He looked at the beach.

It was a disaster zone. Umbrellas were impaled in the sand. People were tangled in chairs. There were coolers everywhere. It looked like a giant had shaken the world and then dropped it.

But everyone was okay. They were mostly just confused. They were standing up, brushing off sand, and looking at the sky.

"Never again," Kev said. He reached into the broken cooler. He pulled out a crushed bag of chips. He opened it and took a bite.

"What?" I asked. "No more Gimli bash?"

"No," Kev said. "No more singing. My throat is shredded."

I laughed. It hurt my chest. The sun was still hot. The lake was still blue. Everything was back to normal. Except for the giant stone Viking statue.

I looked toward the water. The statue was gone. It had landed in the lake. I could see its stone helmet sticking out of the waves. It looked like it was going for a swim.

"Hey, Baz," Kev said.

"Yeah?"

"Look."

He pointed at his hand. He was holding a small pebble. He let go.

The pebble didn't fall.

It hovered for a second. It wobbled. It seemed to consider the sky. Then, it finally dropped into the sand.